How to Save a Life
by Little Miss Beatlemaniac
Summary: Thanks to his parents, Dexter is forced against his will to go to the town pool with Dee Dee. But what happens when he encounters a dangerous situation? Will a certain lifeguard be able to save him? Warning: contains Dexdark. Don't read if it's "not [your] division". Title inspired by The Fray.


**A/N: Hey, guys! I apologize for deleting my last story. I was working on too many books at once. But now, after a break from the Internet, I am back and writing yet another story about these two. I was inspired "Better Off Wet" where Dexter couldn't swim and was afraid of the water. Enjoy! Please R & R! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Dexter's Laboratory. Genndy Tartakovsky and Cartoon Network do.**

(Third-Person P.O.V.)

He had not wanted to go to the town pool. He had wanted to stay home and work on his latest experiment: converting animal waste into a plant fertilizer. However, his family argued that he needed to get outside and socialize more, so he was sent to the town pool, of all places, with Dee Dee, of all people. He sulked and carried his towel under his right arm, silently trudging alongside his hyperactive sister. Dee Dee skipped and traipsed, unlike her sluggish and weary brother.

"What's wrong, Dexter?" she sang, flapping her arms like a bird and smiling goofily. Dexter sighed frustratedly.

"You know very _well_ what is wrong, you stupid sister," he grumped. Dee Dee frowned for half a second before smiling again and giggling. Dexter shuddered. Her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard: squeaky and obnoxious.

"This is gonna be _fun_! Wheee!" she cried ecstatically, picking daisies and throwing them behind her as if she were the spirit of spring. Dexter gagged behind her back and began to start up his thought process. **This is going to be so boring. There is nothing for a boy-genius like me to do at such a boring place as a town pool. No beakers, no graduated cylinders, no elixirs, no ****_nothing_****. Honestly, what do people see in such a mundane activity as ****_swimming_****?**

But even when he tried to convince himself it was nothing, he couldn't shake off his biggest fear yet. **What if somebody pushes me into the pool? I never taught myself how to swim: I'm ****_dead_****!** Dexter had been afraid of the water for about as long as he could remember. He reminisced his screaming cries that he was going to drown while he was in the bath tub as a younger child. He remembered his experience at the ocean where he ran away from a "big blue monster that ate his kingdom" or, in other words, a wave that crashed over his sand castle. But mostly, he reminisced the time he fell into the lake.

He was a small four-year-old boy visiting his grandparents at the lake house with his family. He had toddled outside to the deck when suddenly, he saw a fish. He leaned forward to fetch it, but he tumbled from the dock and into the black, murky depths below. From there, his vision went black except for screaming and water. The last thing he remembered was sitting on his grandfather's chair, wrapped in a towel and crying his eyes out because his nostrils stung from the water that clogged them up.

That memory was the worst by far, and Dexter felt depressed just thinking about it. Embarrassed, he shook it out of his head and attempted to think about something else. He tried so hard to erase it from his brain from time to time. He thought about hydroxylides, electrons, bilithium, and other chemical elements that brought him to his temporary happy place. His lips quirked upward into a technical smirk as he thought about these elements bubbling up in a beaker over a Bunsen burner.

The two siblings arrived at the town pool. Dexter cringed right away: one of many reasons he did not like the town pool was that it was noisy and crowded. He didn't do well in such places. There was a person in the way per every square mile, as far as _he_ was determined. From old ladies with cocktails and ugly one-piece bathing suits, to rowdy young college men pushing each other into the pool and making gorilla noises every few seconds, to little buck-toothed children screaming and riding pool noodles like horses, there was always something to dread. Dexter observed the horrendous sight, his jaw sinking lower to the ground with every added image.

**I can't do this,** he thought, after taking it all in and being unable to delete it from his eidetic memory. He attempted to walk away, but Dee Dee wouldn't allow it.

"Oh no you don't! Mommy said that you had to stay here and play!" she scolded, as if Dexter just barely learnt how to walk. Later, Dee Dee was playing in the baby pool with all of the younger children - **Right where she belongs,** Dexter silently mused - and Dexter sat in a lounge chair. He tried (and failed) to tan. He was just about to fall asleep from the warm summer sun and the screaming background noise when Dee Dee came up to him. **Uh oh,** he thought, automatically pretending to be asleep.

"Dexter?" she inquired, gently poking his arm. He moaned in reply and turned over to the other side, his lack of sleep making up for his acting skills. "Dexter~," she persisted in a singy-song voice, poking Dexter's arm several times in a row. Dexter groaned and curled into himself, wishing that she would just go away, so help him God. Finally, the poking stopped. Dexter started to open his eyes, hoping that perhaps she wasn't there -

"_Dexter_!" she screamed excitedly in his ear. Dexter yelped and jumped, causing his chair to fall backwards. He sat up and rubbed the back of his head, lethargic and annoyed.

"What do you _want_, woman?! I'm _busy_!" he grumped. Dee Dee got in his face and squealed,

"Guess who I've seen, guess who I've seen!" she cried zealously, picking up her poor brother by the hands and spinning him in circles with her. Dexter felt dizzy from all of the sudden movement and was astonished that he didn't end up retching during the next sentence he spoke.

"What, _what_?!" he demanded irritatedly, folding his arms and tapping his foot. He just wanted to sleep, for Pete's sake!

"Ah ah ah~! You have to _guess_, silly! I'll give you three tries!" Dee Dee replied. Dexter went along with it. **Who knows, maybe she'll leave me alone after this,** he thought, though he knew it was only in vain. Dee Dee never left _anybody_ alone.

"Uh...Major Glory?" he guessed.

"Nope!" Dee Dee said, shaking her head.

"MeeMee and LeeLee?"

"Nope!"

"Er...Mordecai?"

"Nope!" Dexter's anger bubbled up and his face grew scarlet all the way to his ears.

"Well, _geez_, woman! Who else could _possibly_ be of your interest?!" he yelled. Maybe it was a random pedestrian in a Hawaiian shirt walking his Rottweiler just like it was the _last_ time he played such a sissy game with her. Dee Dee ignored his irritation and giggled, pointing at the lifeguard chair.

"Hee hee! I saw _Mandark_!" she snickered. Dexter looked in her direction and sure enough, there he was. The tall fifteen-year-old boy was sitting in the lifeguard chair and staring cooly ahead, a neutral expression on his face. The summery breeze danced through his raven-black and normally bone-stiff hair, his upper body was bare and naturally tanned, there were dark Ray-Ban sunglasses covering his eyes, and he bore fiery-red swim trunks that stopped just above his knees. He was pretty hard to hate when he looked like _that_, the fourteen-year-old boy decided, whilst starting to drool.

"Ha! I _knew_ it! I was _right_ about what I read in your diary! You _do_ love Mandark!" Dee Dee exclaimed, snapping Dexter out of his daze immediately.

"I do _not_! That's _disgusting_!" Dexter shouted, cringing and sticking his tongue out. Though, he knew he was only kidding himself.

"Dexter loves Mandark~! Dexter loves Mandark~!" Dee Dee sang jocundly, skipping around Dexter in a circular boundary.

"Hey! Hey, not so _loud_! Stupid sister - " Dexter mumbled, his cheeks flushing a light shade of pink. But it was too late. Mandark heard them from where he was sitting and turned in their direction, pulling his shades down to reveal those shiny brown doe-eyes that Dexter had admired for so long.

"Ah, Dexter! And to what do I owe this encounter?" he queried, after Dexter shrugged and walked up to his chair.

"Uh...nothing! We're just here because, uh...Dee Dee wanted to swim so I took her here!" he lied, putting his stoic face on. Mandark chuckled.

"Well, isn't that sweet," he remarked, before slurping on his banana smoothie with a bendy straw. Dexter's face grew very pink and hot, which he hid by ducking his head.

"I suppose I should ask you the same," he mumbled, after a while.

"What do you mean?" Mandark inquired curiously.

"Y-You know. W-Why _you're_ here," Dexter stuttered, more shy than ever. He looked up immediately and said, "Sorry if that sounded rude."

"That's okay. I'm just here because my parents kicked me out of the lab. Nothing special, really," the taller boy replied, waving it off and crossing his legs. Dexter looked at him with a deep familiarization and sympathy. He understood what that was like. Mandark saw the seriousness of that expression and tried not to blush by saying, "Really, Dexter, I'll be fine. Besides, lifeguards are _sexy_."

He winked and caused Dexter to blush once again. Then he giggled, finding the younger boy's face to be rather flushed and adorable.

"Well, uh, I guess I'm off now," Dexter stammered awkwardly. Mandark pouted out his lower lip and fluttered his long almost-effeminate eyelashes.

"Aw. You're leaving so soon?" he whimpered, bringing out his puppy dog eyes. Dexter nodded, still refusing to look up. "Such a pity. I rather enjoyed your company. Oh well. See you later, Dexter," he cooed, waving good-bye to him flirtatiously.

"S-So long," Dexter choked out, before stumbling away. Dee Dee pranced around for the rest of the day, shouting,

"Dexter loves Mandark~! Dexter loves Mandark~!" Dexter had neither the heart nor the strength to argue. **Yes, yes I do. What of it?** he thought to himself. He back down on the lounge chair and fell asleep for real that time under an umbrella. He dreamt of Mandark, science, and banana smoothies.

Meanwhile, some idiot kids ran around the pool and caused water to spill around the edges. Mandark frowned and blew his whistle, beckoning them to come over to where he was.

"Hey, knock it off! Someone could get seriously hurt from that!" he lectured, as soon as they got there. They nodded and promised they wouldn't do it again. Which was fine, except that they forgot to clean up their mess.

Dexter awoke and saw that the sun was set pretty high in the sky. This meant that it was late in the afternoon and their parents probably expected them to be back soon. As a result, Dexter got up and called his sister's name whilst walking around the perimeter of the pool.

"Dee Dee! Hey Dee Dee, where are you? We should be heading back soo - " SLIP! Dexter slipped on some unattended water and fell into the pool. But the worst part, besides the fact that it was cold and he could not swim, was that he just so happened to fall into the deep end. Twelve...feet...deep. He tried calling for help, but his mouth kept swallowing water. Eventually, all he could do was panic and grab at the water.

Mandark was a pretty well-trained lifeguard and could tell from far away that Dexter was drowning. However, he was not in that zone so he wasn't allowed to save him, according to the rules. But the lifeguard who _was_ in that zone was too busy talking on the phone and the other lifeguards were cluelessly sipping their lemonade and chatting with their friends. Mandark, who had neither lemonade nor a lot of friends, decided to do what was right even if it meant getting fired. **I'm sorry, boss,** he thought, as he sprung from his chair and grabbed a rescue tube.

Nobody even noticed that Dexter was drowning. Drowning was not the way it was pictured in movies. The individual did not really wave their arms spasmodically or shout for help so that it was audible. They actually slapped their arms against the surface and tried to hoist themselves up. This way, nobody really paid much attention because they figured that person was just dog-paddling. So naturally, nobody had any idea that Dexter was drowning until Mandark blew his whistle, dove into the water, and made his way towards him.

Mandark's eyes stung with chlorine chemicals, but he continued to tread water at a speedy rate. Nearly everybody stopped what they were doing and observed as Mandark swam closer to his destination who was beginning to lose consciousness. Dee Dee gasped in horror, realizing what was happening around her for once.

"_No_!" she cried, small tears draining out of her eyes. By the time Mandark reached Dexter, the smaller boy was laying face-down upon the water and starting to sink. He frowned in thought and turned Dexter over on his back using the rescue tube. Dexter's eyes were closed and it didn't look like he was breathing. Mandark floated back on the rescue tube whilst supporting Dexter under his arm and wrapping a steady forearm around his head. The crowd cheered and Dee Dee cried tears of relief. But they quickly became tears of other reason when she found out that Dexter was in critical condition.

Mandark placed her brother onto the grass away from the pool and performed CPR immediately. First, he had to make sure he was really unconscious.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a loud bold voice. Dexter did not answer back and he wasn't breathing. That was enough of an answer already. Mandark placed his hands below Dexter's right breastbone and compressed at 100 beats per minute to the chorus of "Stayin' Alive". Then came the tricky part: mouth-to-mouth. This was tricky because Mandark was flustered at the fact that he would technically be kissing Dexter. At the same time, though, he would do _anything_ to save his life.

He gently leaned down, caressed Dexter's face, pressed his lips against his, and blew. He repeated the process every three to four seconds. **I'm kissing Dexter! I'm kissing Dexter! I'm kissi - oh, shut up, brain! **Mandark argued in his head. Finally, Dexter's chest began to rise and he coughed up a significant amount of water. He could barely open his eyes and he lost the ability to move as well.

"M-Mandark?" he gurgled, his Russian accent tired and rusty. Mandark nodded and Dee Dee sobbed tears of joy, glad that her brother was okay. He smiled sheepishly. "You - You saved my life," he realized, his smile growing even bigger. Mandark nodded whilst stroking his ginger hair before gently planting a kiss on his forehead. The crowd went "Aw," cheered, and clapped. The boss was originally going to fire Mandark, but he understood what happened and let him off with a warning. After all, he was a very smart boy.

Later that day, Dee Dee went home to let the two love birds walk alone. Mandark wrapped a friendly arm around Dexter's shoulder while he was escorting Dexter home.

"So, what's the _real_ reason you came to the pool today?" he queried. Dexter chuckled and looked down with shyness.

"Well, it's because I was kicked out of my lab too," he replied. Mandark looked at him with deep affection and sympathy.

"Oh, God. Don't you _hate_ it when they do that?" Dexter shook his head. Mandark seemed confused. "How come?" he asked. Dexter smiled.

"Well, I originally hated the idea and argued against it," he began, before stopping in his place and cupping Mandark's face tenderly, "But then I found out about this sexy lifeguard who knows how to save a life when necessary, so I figured it wasn't too bad." It was Mandark's turn to blush for once, and Dexter smirked in triumph.

"Oh, _really_? What's his name?" Mandark mused after a while, raising an eyebrow. Dexter laughed and gave him a friendly punch in the ribs.

"You're so modest!" he joked sarcastically. Both boys leaned forward to share the first kiss that counted.


End file.
